Author: Xevinaly

“The reason is that your bow can’t be considered real equipment. It didn’t even increase your damage by a single point and can be considered a special existence like a Warrior’s shield. All starting equipment is like this.” Cheng Yang explained when he stopped laughing.

“No way! Doesn’t that mean Rangers need to expend two thing to fight? Mana and Arrows?”

Cheng Yang was speechless, “Have you never used the arrows your quiver makes before? When you use one it increases your damage by two and a half points and you don’t need Mana. The ones in the store are even better and increase damage by five points.”

Yu Kai gave a wan smile but couldn’t retort. Although the increased efficiency of using the arrows wasn’t amazing it did allow a Low-Grade archer to have the same damage as a Standard-Grade one.

“Yoko, what are our plans for the morning?” Liu Hau asked, dispelling the unpleasant atmosphere.

“Most of Ox’s team is responsible for protecting the Loggers right now, as for everyone else, we’re going to visit Cloud City.” Cheng Yang said.

“We’re going to break through to Cloud City today?” Yu Kai asked in surprise.

Cheng Yang saw Old Lee send him a grateful look and nodded.

Yu Kai only nodded before shouting at his team to prepare.

The village become quite lively as all the soldiers prepared for the journey. In addition to Cheng Yang, every soldier was buying as many potions as they could. Mana Recovery Potions to ensure they were never defenseless and Health Recovery Potions to make sure they didn’t die randomly.

Cheng Yang’s commanders also bought potions but they were only going to act as extra bags for Cheng Yang. All of the potions they bought would go to him.

After everyone was finished preparing Cheng Yang opened the gate without a word. The hundred and fifty strong army directly exited the gate leaving a strong impression on the civilians in the village.

Even during the march Cheng Yang wasn’t complacent. He was constantly scanning the side of the road, looking for alchemical components he could use. Searching for herbs and the like was really only suitable as daytime work.

Since the army was marching in a different direction than the one he search last night Cheng Yang gathered enough components to make forty potions only two kilometers in. If he didn’t need to stay at the front of the army he would have been able to gather at least double that!

Of course, Cheng Yang didn’t carry the components he found himself. One of his team’s members was tasked with doing that. This could be seen as an abuse of power but since the soldier seemed excited by the various components Cheng Yang didn’t worry about it.

After a little more walking Cheng Yang ordered the army to halt.

“My Lord, is the bridge to Cloud City nearby?” Old Lee asked.

“There are still another two kilometers to go but we need to start acting now otherwise it will be impossible to succeed.”

“Whatever you command I will complete it thoroughly my Lord.” Old Lee patted his chest. He was fired up knowing that this was the last barrier between him and his family.

Cheng Yang gathered the Captains. “From now on we’ll be moving independently with our teams. As we continue moving it is important that we clear the monster hordes on the way. Whenever you encounter a horde either destroy it or lead it away from the bridge, we can’t let them attack me from behind at a critical moment.”

“Yoko, what do you mean? You aren’t planning on attacking the horde on the bridge by yourself are you?” Yu Kai interrupted.

“You’ve got it right, since its not safe for the rest of you to go I’m starting the fight alone. After all, the leader of this group is an existence you simply can’t defeat. You’re too weak to join the fight with me but your job is even more important. Although I’m fast enough to run circles around every monster there if my path to retreat is cut off I’ll definitely die. That’s why you absolutely must not leave any hordes in the two kilometers between here and the bridge.”

“My Lord, this is too risky, let us join you.” Old Lee urged, “With the help of our potions we can still help you fight.”

“Don’t worry, its not as dangerous as you’re imagining. Don’t bother with the hordes numbers, most of them are only Low-Grade. My speed is easily five or six times faster than every one of those monsters below Standard-Grade. The only monster there capable of pressuring me is the leader. If the situation isn’t looking good I’ll just turn around and run. If the leader is smart it won’t chase me. If it does dare to follow me back, you’ll be waiting and it will never return.”

Cheng Yang’s confidence infected the Captains. Even Old Lee had been convinced by Cheng Yang.

“My Lord,” He said, “How big of an area do you need us to open up for you?”

“At least one square kilometer. After all, the amount of space a thousand monsters will take up isn’t small. If the space I have isn’t big enough it will be hard for me to move around. Make sure you move in a predictable way otherwise I won’t be able to find you when I need to get more potions.”

“Rest assured, we’ll make sure to follow the same paths after you leave.” Yu Kai said.

Cheng Yang nodded and then began to assign tasks. He would head directly to the bridge alone. Two of the four teams would sweep directly around the perimeter and the last two would walk in a circle between the bridge and the outer perimeter. After walking another six hundred meters, the teams and Cheng Yang split up.

Cheng Yang chose to follow the same path he had the day before. Although it being clear yesterday didn’t guarantee that it was today, it was still less likely for him to run into a large horde. As for the newly spawned monster he ran into? Cheng Yang just smashed them with a Magic Missile.

Cheng Yang was especially careful to conserve the potions he had while clearing the path to the bridge. After he finished, he went back the way he come collecting alchemical components. Unlike the previous night, he used the Harvest skill to collect the components. Although he knew how to collect basic components without the skill, he would only be able to cry if he found something rare and his Harvest skill wasn’t a high enough level.

The only hiccup during this time was that after he had already cleared the path, he ran into a horde with over a hundred monsters. Although he tried to defeat them without using a potion, he had to in the end.

The other four groups had a much easier time. None of them had run into a horde with over eighty monsters so they quickly completed their patrol. It would seem that after Cheng Yang cleared the area yesterday, very few monsters had wandered over.

Before each group returned, they were able get a good look at the deep ravine surrounding the city. They were also able to see the bridge through the cracks in the trees. Cheng Yang hadn’t lied, there were at least a thousand monsters and not a single person couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread.

After they all gathered together at their original position, Cheng Yang grabbed an extra potion from Yu Kai before heading out to face the monster horde.

The other leaders exchanged a few words before scattering into the woods once more.

Cheng Yang once again stood in front of the horde that guarded the southern bridge into Cloud City. Looking over at the group of monsters, Cheng Yang cursed his luck. In the time since his last visit, a large group of Blood Gehenna had joined the horde. These monsters were fierce, cunning and possessed a powerful passive skill. They were monsters he definitely didn’t want to face.

Individually they were nothing special, but they were able to absorb the blood around them to increase their Health. Although he would be able to insta-kill the first few like any other Low-Grade monster, as the battle continued their Health would reach the level of a Standard-Grade monster. Fighting a group of them would cause his potions to be expended much faster than normal.

Regardless, he still needed to kill them in order to reach Cloud City. Old Lee wasn’t the only one eager to get to Cloud City. Although Cheng Yang wanted to help out Old Lee, he had his own reasons for going to Cloud City. He remembered from his previous life that the city housed a number of good things. There was at least one instance dungeon and the spawn rate for treasure was higher in the first few days in the city than in other areas. Although he couldn’t bring an instance dungeon back to the village, he could still collect some treasures. As long as he killed the leader of this horde, all of those treasure would be his!

Cheng Yang subconsciously grinned. He turned towards the horde with renewed vigor and ran forwards.

The bone stave in his hands started to glow with magical energy before Cheng Yang shot a Magic Missile into the crowd. It flew forwards and directly decapitated a Blood Gehenna. It couldn’t even let out a scream before falling to the ground lifelessly.

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Although it was only a Low-Grade potion, it was far stronger than the one he had found earlier. It was a potion that anyone would envy due to its doubled effectiveness.

The most amazing part of the potion wasn’t the actual effect, but that Cheng Yang’s name was in the item description! It was the unique privilege of people who received a Profession Talent. As long as you could create a product that was better than a standard one, your name would be added to the title.

If Cheng Yang were to use the potions he had just made, the effects would be doubled once more which would put their effectiveness leagues ahead of those from the store. With this, a large gap could be created between him and everyone else.

His success rate was higher than average today since he was able to make 13 potions, something that made him feel highly satisfied. The key was that only successfully using a skill provided experience towards leveling up a Profession. Since he had made 13 potions, his experience bar had reached 13%.

Even though only successes mattered, Energy was consumed regardless of whether the skill succeeded.

Cheng Yang placed the Alchemy Pot and the potions he had made into his backpack and continued to search the forest.

After using all of his potions, Cheng Yang returned to Phoenix Village. His harvest this time was much bigger than earlier, he had gained 2200 Experience Fragments! Although it was impressive, it wasn’t something he could replicate. After this night of slaughter, all of the large monsters hordes in the area had been completely eradicated. If he wanted to gain large amounts of Experience Fragments, he could only journey further from the village.

However, the further you had to travel the longer it would take to get there which would reduce your overall efficiency.

Immediately upon his return to Phoenix Village, Cheng Yang began his daily training. He now had a room to himself on the second floor where he could be alone.

Cheng Yang’s experience bar had reached 7.8% once he had finished training. Most of the soldiers in Phoenix Village had similar percentages but those that had unlocked four times training speed were closer to twenty percent.

When he left his room he saw Old Lee still meditating across the hall. With a smile, he went outside to check the class change statues and found, to his delight, that the Priest statue had leveled up up to Standard-Grade. Now Phoenix Village would be able to have 12 Priests.

Now each team could have two Priests or they could double the number of teams they had. After all, the Priests of Phoenix Village were far from normal, as they had the top level skill Angelic Inspiration!

Cheng Yang gathered the civilians in the village and tested them until he found seven people with the potential to be a Priest. The process took Cheng Yang more than half an hour and a lot of Experience Fragments, but it was more than worth it to have the best Priests Phoenix Village could.

After that, Cheng Yang started a new research for all five statues. He estimated that tomorrow, the four primary statues would level up late in the afternoon. Right now, they only had a two research options left: the two Defense attribute upgrades.

When they did level up, the only thing stopping the whole village from leveling up would be a twenty thousand Experience Fragment deficit. After all, most of Phoenix Village’s Experience Fragments were used the same day and all of the hordes within its collection radius had been destroyed. Now, they could only rely on the slow respawn rate near the periphery and the small hordes teams managed to lure inside the collection radius.

Although Cheng Yang didn’t know exactly how many Experience Fragments could be gained that way, he knew that earning a thousand would be a very good day.

If it weren’t for the instance dungeon providing 1000 Experience Fragments a day, they wouldn’t be able to gather that many Experience Fragments for months. They could rely on individual donations but that would just mean neglecting the growth of Phoenix Village’s soldiers.

Take yesterday for instance, dozens of people took Alchemist or Logger as a Profession but not one of them could buy knowledge for their Profession. Most of them couldn’t even buy the tools they needed. These people could barely afford their own training, they were in no position to donate to the village.

As for potions, their need for them wasn’t as great as Cheng Yang’s. Even if it sped up their attack efficiency, everyone else hunted in fairly large groups so they didn’t need to be able to use more attacks than the Mana capacity supported.

Aside from a couple Health Recovery Potions meant for emergencies, most people simply didn’t buy potions.

After Cheng Yang performed the class change ceremonies for the new Priests, he ran the Hard Difficulty Blood-Soaked Cathedral. A half-hour later, Cheng Yang appeared outside the instance dungeon.

Now that Cheng Yang had access to potions, he was able to clear the instance dungeon more efficiently. He even received two pieces of Black Iron equipment, a lucky occurrence.

The wristband and pair of shoes he received didn’t increase his Magic Attack or Mana so Cheng Yang didn’t want them. If a piece of equipment didn’t increase his combat potential as a Mage, it was more efficient to give it to someone else.

Cheng Yang now had one thousand one hundred Experience Fragments. He had considered making a thousand of them into a training bundle, but decided that it was more important to get the Loggers who gained their Profession yesterday working. After buying 20 sets of logging tools, Cheng Yang was left with a hundred Experience Fragments in spare change.

Then Cheng Yang gathered twenty people who had become Loggers and distributed the tools he had bought.

Of course, Cheng Yang didn’t give these tools away for free. Each Logger had to agree to give the first fifty cubic meters of wood they harvested to the village free of charge.

Originally, god’s rules dictated that all wood was the exclusive property of the one who harvested it. Even if a territory took the wood by force, they wouldn’t be able to use it until they paid. They wouldn’t even be able to extort the wood from the Loggers since the price wasn’t decided by them but the rules of god.

In general, the price of wood fluctuated between two and five Experience Fragments per cubic meter. Cheng Yang’s quota of fifty cubic meter’s wasn’t arbitrarily decided but was so that even if the price was at its lowest, he would make up the money he was owed. After he bought the wood from the Loggers, they would just donate the Experience Fragments they had earned back to the territory.

Seeing that Cheng Yang had finished training, Old Lee waved at Cheng Yang and walked over. “My Lord, will we be able to fight our way into Cloud City today?”

Cheng Yang looked over at the anxious man with sympathy. “Today, after you clear the instance dungeon use all of the Experience Fragments to buy potions. After that we will make some plans.”

Old Lee opened his mouth to respond but stayed silent for a long time. “The blockade in from of the city only has seven hundred monsters my Lord. We’ve already killed hordes with three hundred or more, even with potions are we still not strong enough?”

“That was only their numbers yesterday, right now there should be more than a thousand waiting for us there. With that many monsters, there is definitely a High-Grade monster and possibly even a Pinnacle-Grade monsters if we’re unlucky. If we are unprepared, we will suffer greatly.”

Old Lee understood that even if he didn’t want to accept it. Even if every magician in the village fired on one at once, it would still survive and if it ever reached them, it would insta-kill the weaker Professionals.

Cheng Yang saw Old Lee’s crestfallen expression and knew he was just worried about his family. “Don’t worry, I didn’t say we couldn’t today, just that we need to do some preparation to keep us safe. Your family would be sad if you died during the assault.”

“I will obey your orders my Lord.” Old Lee said sobering up.

Afterwards, Old Lee gathered the members of his team and entered the Blood Soaked Cathedral.

At this time, Cheng Yang didn’t leave to hunt, instead he supervised the Loggers as they harvested wood in the lush forest a kilometer from the village walls. After a few days of accelerated growth, several trees had reached a diameter of six hundred centimeters and were the perfect candidates for obtaining wood.

The twenty Loggers didn’t start immediately since Cheng Yang needed to prepare a security force for them. The forty people selected served the dual purpose of killing the monsters that spawned nearby and carrying wood back to the village. Without these guards, the Loggers wouldn’t be able to focus on felling the trees.

Cheng Yang completely passed off the responsibility of guarding the Loggers off to Lau Hui. Although this would decrease the amount of Experience Fragments they would gain today, someone had to do it. The downsides to harvesting professions only existed for territories below the High-Grade. Once Phoenix Village leveled up again, every citizen would receive a Loyalty stat, representing their contributions to the territory. Many of the privileges and benefits the territory had to offer could only be accessed by people with a high Loyalty stat.

Lau Hui had cleared the instance dungeon earlier so his team immediately went out to support the newly equipped Loggers.

Half an hour later, Yu Kai exited the instance dungeon. In general, every team would try and clear the instance dungeon within an hour or two of finishing their training. After all, they would be able to obtain equipment for themselves in addition to the large number of Experience Fragments.

After exiting the instance dungeon, Yu Kai walked over his an accusatory expression. “Yoko, why didn’t you warn me that the bows in the Lumber Mill needed actual arrows? I went into the shop before entering the instance dungeon and saw a beautiful bow that increased damage for only forty Experience Fragments. I thought it was a great bargain but after buying it, that damned manager told me it needed arrows and each bundle of five cost a whole Experience Fragment each!”

Cheng Yang didn’t even bother trying to stifle his laughter, “That’s on you idiot, what kind of bow wouldn’t need arrows?”

Yu Kai huffed, “How was I supposed to know? My old bow didn’t need arrows.” He argued.

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The level of danger Ascendants had was plain for all to see, but if you asked Cheng Yang if he wanted to run into one, he would raise his hands and feet to give you an affirmative answer.

That wasn’t to say Cheng Yang was impatient to die. Rather, Ascendants had a very valuable quality.

Ascendants could be tamed and turned into Familiars.

Sadly, finding an Ascendant was too rare and with their variable strength, finding a decent Familiar was even rarer. In his past life, a woman with a powerful Ascendant Familiar had gone from an ordinary person directly to the Lord of a territory. That story had inspired thousands around the world to try and obtain their own Familiar. It was quite common for a person who didn’t have any hopes for getting stronger to venture deep into the wilderness in hopes of taming an Ascendant. Almost none of them returned.

Although Cheng Yang hoped to encounter an Ascendant, he also knew that it was impossible right now. In his past life, an Ascendant had never been sighted in this area. The areas around the safe zones and Territory Altars were the places god cared about the most and as a result, the new rules of this world were most complete in these areas as well. Since they were a byproduct of the clash of two worlds, Ascendants tended to live at the edges of god’s world, where the rules were incomplete.

Ascendants were still a very distant existence for Cheng Yang and it was more important to get stronger here than to risk everything in the wilderness.

As Cheng Yang continued to sweep the forest, if he ran into hordes with less than 80 monsters he wouldn’t use a potion. Instead he would use the old method of hiding and replenishing his Mana. This was to maximize the benefits he gained from his potions.

Over the next hour and a half, Cheng Yang destroyed: a large monster horde of 300, two hordes of two hundred, and eight smaller ones. Once again, his Experience Fragments reached the 1600 range.

By that time, he had used all of his potions and decided to go home.

Back in Phoenix Village, he found Liu Hau training. His team was also training in their respective Meditation Halls. In order to ensure maximum training efficiency, only Professionals were allowed to use the Meditation Halls. All of the civilians had to sleep outside.

Perhaps if these people had been in Phoenix Village since the start of the apocalypse, they would have protested this treatment, but after what they experienced in Huimin they were grateful even for that. They had seen too many deaths during the rescue and cleanup operations. If you were lucky you’d have a complete skeleton, if you weren’t it might just be a few finger joints scattered on the ground.

Those scenes made the survivors of Huimin grateful just to be alive and safe. As for a place to sleep, who would still demand that? Who would dare demand that?

Cheng Yang now had to decide what to do with the thousand Experience Fragments he had. Should he use them for himself or let others train with them?

There was no doubt that if he lent out the Experience Fragments it would greatly speed up the growth of Phoenix Village’s soldiers, but Cheng Yang couldn’t trust many others yet. That many Experience Fragments wasn’t a huge amount for a territory but they were still important to Cheng Yang’s personal growth right now.

The catch was that if he didn’t lend the Experience Fragments they wouldn’t help his training speed at all. To unlock a faster training speed, he would need a lot more than two thousand Experience Fragments. After the eight-times training speed you would unlock sixteen times training speed when you gathered ten thousand Experience Fragments. Cheng Yang would still need a week to obtain that many.

If he lent his thousand Experience Fragments to his soldiers, six would be able to level up to Standard-Grade in the same amount of time.

After some thought, Cheng Yang decided to lend these Experience Fragments and the ones he would make over the coming days to others for training. After the total he had lent out reached ten thousand, he would take them back and unlock sixteen times training speed for him and the team Captains.

Right now it was 10:00 at night and Cheng Yang still had four hours before he could train again so he decided to settle an important matter. Waking Liu Hau from his state of meditation, Cheng Yang asked: “What do you think of your subordinate Chen Chao?”

“Chen Chao? She’s a capable person and reliable. She’s a Ranger and was a soldier before the apocalypse so she’s adapted quite easily. She’s contributed a lot to Phoenix Village after we saved her and her mother from Huimin. She’s also well respected by many of the people from Huimin.”

“If you approve of it, I think you should make her your Vice Captain. Your team will only get bigger and it won’t be possible to manage it on your own so it’s important to choose someone you can trust before you need them.”

Liu Hau understood what Cheng Yang was saying so pondered on his words for a minute. “In that case, I really think Chen Chao is the right choice. Her military background will help me compensate for my lack of management experience. Now that I have someone good, you better not try and steal her from me Yoko.” Liu Hau warned.

“Why would I need to do that?” Cheng Yang chuckled.

“That’s true, the entirety of Phoenix Village is in your control after all. Even so, you absolutely can’t transfer her to a different team!”

“Alright, I promise I won’t.” Cheng Yang said throwing up his hands. He knew that if he didn’t make that promise, Liu Hau wouldn’t ever let the issue rest.

Cheng Yang then asked if Liu Hau thought anyone from the other teams was worthy of a promotion. After a few minutes of discussion, Cheng Yang had a list of suitable candidates.

At the same time, Yu Kai’s team returned from Huimin with a group of survivors and a large amount of resources. Cheng Yang had the same discussion with Yu Kai who immediately nominated a member of his team that Cheng Yang hadn’t expected.

When the nominee stood in front of Cheng Yang, he realized it was the taxi driver who had been with Lau Hui. It was only now that he learned his name, Lu Jiacheng.

Lu Jiacheng was a Warrior and had a B-Rank Innate Ability. Although this wasn’t impressive for Phoenix Village, he would have been a fairly high ranked individual in the Phoenix Village from Cheng Yang’s previous life.

Cheng Yang knew the other teams wouldn’t return for a while so went to rouse Chen Chao from her meditation. Cheng Yang then explained the rules for experience sharing before loaning her one thousand Experience Fragments.

The rules were fairly simple: the Experience Fragments could not be used for personal reasons and after using them for four hours, they must immediately be given to the next Vice Captain.

Next, Cheng Yang went to the Alchemy Tower and bought another twenty Mana Recovery Potions. After that he left Phoenix Village.

This time, Cheng Yang’s goal was different so he bought Ever-Burning Oil from the Alchemy Tower as well to make a torch. His goal now was to collect the alchemical components needed to make a Mana Recovery Potion. He wanted to quickly level up his Job and couldn’t do that by wasting Energy.

Energy wasn’t a resource that could be recovered by a potion. His Energy would only be refilled every day at midnight. If you didn’t use it all before midnight, the remainder was completely wasted. Skills gained from a Job were powered by Energy instead of Mana so there was a limited number of times you could use them every day. The only way to increase that number was to level up your Job and the only way to do that was to use Job skills.

This time, Cheng Yang not only brought a torch but also took his Alchemy Pot with him. Although it was rather large, his superhuman strength allowed him to carry it with ease.

He had to say, although the first few weeks of the apocalypse was like a hell to most people, the crafters from his previous life would consider it heaven. Just like monsters, the spawn rate for various materials used by Jobs was incredibly high on the first day. Right now, materials that would take an hour to find in his previous life, were scattered all around the village.

Using a torch to light his way meant that even distant monsters would travel to attack him, but it made finding alchemical components very easy.

After walking two kilometers, Cheng Yang’s bag held more than twenty uprooted plants. If he hadn’t just been collecting the ones needed to make Mana Recovery potions he would have harvested dozens more. Unfortunately, the amount he had collected was only enough to make three potions.

Whenever Cheng Yang got close to a large monster horde, he would have to smother the torch’s flame. If he wasn’t careful, he might find himself totally surrounded.

Cheng Yang would then eliminate the horde and relight the torch and search the area. If he found any of the plants he needed, they would immediately be snatched up by him.

Electrical lighters couldn’t be used right now but luckily Cheng Yang’s soldiers had found hundreds of gas lighters in the ruins of Huimin. If they hadn’t, Cheng Yang would have had to resort to using flint like in ancient times.

It was ten minutes before midnight when Cheng Yang finished gathering enough components to make twenty potions. Since he didn’t need to use the Identify of Harvest skills thanks to the experience from his past life, he was able to devote all of his Energy to the Refine skill. Although, if the materials were of a higher level he wouldn’t dare risk harming them by manually harvesting them.

Cheng Yang stopped wandering around and went into a ruined building to refine potions. The actual process was quite simple. He just needed to prepare the components according to the recipe, put them in the Alchemy Pot, and use the Refine skill. After a certain period of time, the potion would either be completed or explode.

Of course, the Refine skill didn’t have a perfect success rate. For the Mana Recovery Potion, the success rate was around 60% for a Low-Grade Apprentice Alchemist. The success rate was quite high since recovery potions were the most common potions. For rarer potions, the success rates would usually be abysmally low.

The actual refinement only took a few seconds and if it succeeded, Cheng Yang would pour it into one of the bottles he had prepared.

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Cheng Yang’s Mana Recovery Potion (Low-Grade): Restores 20 Mana instantly and then 4 Mana every second for ten seconds

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Cheng Yang wanted to learn the Health Recovery Potion recipe as well but didn’t have the Experience Fragments to do so. It wasn’t a huge loss for Cheng Yang since he wouldn’t need Health Recovery Potions often. He only needed to prepare a few just in case.

Of course, it wasn’t enough just to learn the reciepe for a potion, several other tools were needed such as an Alchemy Pot or Alchemy Furnace. When creating advanced or specialized potions you would only need more and more equipment.

Cheng Yang purchased the two pieces of equipment he would need for now from the shop: an Alchemy Pot and a set of Alchemy Utensils. These tools were generally inexpensive and only cost 200 Experience Fragments in total.

Cheng Yang looked at the status pane that only showed 400 Experience Fragments and couldn’t help but smile, looks like he would be busy tonight.

Fortunately, spending so much wasn’t without other benefits. The village received over 70 Experience Fragments in taxes and 3 were given to him as the Lord.

He spent one thousand six hundred Experience Fragments and they gave him back three? What a slap in the face!

It was already late when Cheng Yang left the Alchemy Tower. When he did he saw a large crowd outside of the Lumber Mill door trying to look inside. Cheng Yang guessed that a few people must have tried to enter and had been thrown out by the manager.

he knew that if a manager didn’t like someone they wouldn’t act civilized. They would just sweep their hands and have you thrown directly out of the store. Even in his past life no one knew the limits of the managers. A few people had even tried to steal from a store and dropped dead on the spot.

“Yoko this… why is there someone in there?” Liu Hau asked when he saw Cheng Yang, looking as if he had found a life-saving rope.

“Why can’t someone be there?” Cheng Yang asked indifferently.

“But th-” Liu Hau was interrupted before he could ask another question.

“Well, Koko, I can’t really tell you. Just know that they may not be people from earth and that they still have the same intelligence and emotions as one. Treat them as well as you treat me and it will do you some good in the future.”

“What can I gain from that?”

“If one day you have enough to buy something you’ll understand immediately.”

Liu Hau wasn’t a fool and could think of a few things that could mean. Was the benefit that they could buy goods at all? Were the people who offended the manager not allowed to buy things?

Liu Hau smiled bitterly. “But none of these people offended him, why were they still driven out? I didn’t even dare try and go inside.”

“These civilians? They don’t even have a single Experience Fragment, that’s why they were kicked out. The people in the stores worship money. If you have enough, they’ll treat you like a god.”

“Really?” Liu Hau hesitated at the door of the Lumber Mill.

“You won’t know if you don’t go in.”

“Okay, I try it.” Liu Hau threw his hands up before walking into the Lumber Mill. Twenty seconds later he still hadn’t been thrown out.

Before the rest of the crowd tried to enter the building Cheng Yang made an announcement. “The stores are only for Professionals, if you don’t have one you can’t join in on the fun.” Most of the crowd dispersed and Cheng Yang explained Professions to the Professionals. He told them what types of Professions there were and the details about Profession tests.

“In addition, if you want to be able to take the Profession test then you need to buy something worth at least ten Experience Fragments. Alright, that’s everything.” Cheng Yang then left the soldiers of Phoenix Village to decide which Profession they wanted. It was a matter of personal preference and he didn’t want to impose his will on them. It would affect their productivity if they didn’t enjoy the Profession they had.

After his speech Cheng Yang dropped his alchemy tools off at his house then left the village. His goal was to fight a large monster horde on his own. Since he had so many potions now he wouldn’t have to worry about running out of Mana mid-battle.

Of course, it would be great if he could find some alchemy components tonight as well but he didn’t have any hopes for that. Finding monsters in the long grass wasn’t hard but to find a few specific plants wasn’t easy, especially at night.

Cheng Yang spent a couple minutes quickly rushing outside the territory boundary and into the forests beyond.

He ran a couple kilometers away from the village walls and arrived at a location that had never been patrolled by the village soldiers. The level of danger here was high since there would be dozens of medium monster hordes and even a couple with several hundred.

Originally Cheng Yang was going to leave the smaller hordes to his soldiers later but in order to avoid accidents tonight he decided to take care of them.

After successfully destroying two smaller monster hordes Cheng Yang came across one with over 300 monsters in it.

During the day he had killed a horde of the same size but the tactic he had used was just too slow. He would kill a few then run away and recover. This kind of guerrilla warfare just wasn’t very efficient.

The situation now was totally different. He had enough potions, and Cheng Yang was a very practical person. After seeing the horde of Graveseekers, he charged towards them, unleashing a Magic Missile that ended the life of an unwary Graveseeker.

Cheng Yang didn’t show mercy and continuously rained down attacks while retreating at a slow pace..

After losing a few of their numbers, the leader of the Graveseeker horde realized they were under attack. It let out a baby-like scream and the entire horde rushed towards Cheng Yang.

Cheng Yang slightly accelerated, although it was still far below his top speed. He was now retreating at the same speed that the Graveseekers were advancing at.

When the horde had lost a tenth of its members, Cheng Yang ran out of Mana. Cheng Yang immediately reached into the bag on his back and drank a Mana Recovery Potion.

A refreshing coolness permeated Cheng Yang’s body. The fatigue of the day melted away and Cheng Yang’s Mana began to replenish.

Cheng Yang only paused for seven seconds before firing Magic Missiles again. That was all it took for Cheng Yang’s Mana to be completely refilled. Thanks to his new Innate Ability, Cheng Yang’s potions were twice as effective. The Standard-Grade potion originally wouldn’t have been enough to fully restore his Mana, but now some of it was wasted.

The slaughter continued as Cheng Yang annihilated an Elite Standard-Order monster, driving the others into a frenzy.

The Graveseekers continued to run at Cheng Yang with red eyes like a swarm of bees, incapable of assessing whether this was a fight they could win. Just like that they condemned themselves to the fate of becoming Experience Fragments for Cheng Yang.

After the battle, Cheng Yang checked his harvest. He had gained 314 Experience Fragments but only used 7 potions. Since the potions cost a total of 56 Experience Fragments, his net gain was only 258. Although this might seem like an unreasonable cost, if you considered how much longer it would have taken otherwise, it was well worth it.

When he took care of a horde of the same size earlier, he had needed an hour, an army, and extreme focus. Now it just took 7 or 8 minutes for him to do it alone without feeling stressed at all. Tonight he would only be able to deal with two more large hordes using this method.

This was because Cheng Yang didn’t have a Spacial Ring yet. If he did he could just buy as many Mana Recovery Potions as he could and slaughter his way across the forest.

This was Cheng Yang’s unique advantage. Even large hordes were completely incapable of pressuring Cheng Yang. If that god saw how well Cheng Yang was doing, they would probably cry.

Of course, Cheng Yang wasn’t arrogant enough to believe he had reached the point that he was invincible. Countless powerful people in his last life were capable of achieving the same thing as him but still randomly died in the wilderness. In this new world, there was no way to know when an astoundingly powerful creature would appear out of no where.

In this new world, the most powerful creatures weren’t monster but rather Ascendants. Monsters were creatures transported into this world that followed certain rules. Their strengths and weaknesses were easily predictable, as were their growth rates. The same couldn’t be said about Ascendants. They were animals from before the end of the world that were mutated by the residual energy of the apocalypse.

The strength of an Ascendant was very hard to gauge. Some were weaker than Low-Grade Immature monsters, barely stronger than ordinary animals. As for the most powerful Ascendant seen in his past life, it completely dwarfed the most powerful monster seen. It had been seen killing a Pinnacle-Grade Mature monster with a single casual swipe. A Pinnacle-Grade Mature monster was capable of destroying an entire territory and it was killed just like that!

The strength of Ascendants left humanity quaking in fear. Luckily their numbers were small ,and they mostly stayed away from the areas humanity lived in.

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Cheng Yang’s surroundings distorted and he disappeared in a curtain of light.

When Cheng Yang opened his eyes again he was surrounded by thousands of magical herbs and plants.

Cheng Yang was unsurprising since all Profession tests would occur in a unique instance dungeon. As such, when you died in a test you would be transported back outside completely unharmed.

At that moment Cheng Yang heard the Alchemy Tower manager’s voice in his head: “Welcome to the Garden of Pan Lan. The test will begin in 10… 9… 8…”

Cheng Yang was tense. He really hoped that the test wouldn’t include a Pinnacle-Grade monster in any way. The gap between levels was biggest when you were an Apprentice, at that level fighting against higher level monsters was nearly impossible. The monsters stats would be similar and people’s equipment would be too low level to provide a substantial boost.

If Cheng Yang had to deal with a higher level monster, it would be impossible for him to defeat it. The terrain of the garden was also flat so he would have no where to hide.

He felt the probability of that happening was quite low. Even if this was the Hellish difficulty trial even a High-Grade monster would be enough to guarantee that no one would pass. Even if it was hard it was supposed to be possible.

The manager finally finished counting down: “Identification and collection of alchemical components are the two most basic skills an Alchemist can learn. Some may look down on the task as menial but it is the true basis of alchemy. For your test please find and properly harvest the following components in the next thirty minutes. Sword Grass, Corpse-Thistle…”

When he heard what his test would be Cheng Yang felt 10,000 grass mud horses gallop through his mind. When they passed, Cheng Yang couldn’t suppress his excitement.

The task was just getting a few components.

To anyone else this task wouldn’t be easy, especially in a garden with thousands of different plants. It wasn’t because modern doctors never used traditional medicines but because all of the plants worldwide had undergone drastic changes. Even if Hua Tuo himself appeared to take this test he would only be able to rely on his luck.

To Cheng Yang, this test was laughable. In his previous life, although he hadn’t been an Alchemist, he had become very familiar with alchemical components since most Alchemists would hire others to gather them. The components he needed to gather were the ingredients for a Mana Recovery Potion, although it could also be a Health Recovery Potion if the proportions were changed.

Why did Cheng Yang receive such an easy test? Cheng Yang guessed it was because the creation of each test wasn’t done individually by god but was an automated process. If that was the case how could an algorithm guess that he had been reincarnated? Right now the average level of strength for humanity was infinitely close to zero. That is to say, even a test where you needed to steal a plant from a Low-Grade monster could be considered difficult. Since fighting stronger monsters than that would still be easy to him, it must have changed the test accordingly.

This guess was mostly right. Profession tests were actually created without considering the average strength but instead were based off of personal strength. The difficulty was calculated so that regardless of a person’s level there would always be a consistent chance of passing the test in an unintended way. For instance, if the test he had was given to millions of people, only two or three people would pass by pure luck. This was in line with the rules of this new world.

What the algorithm didn’t know was that even fighting a Standard-Grade monster would be a harder test for Cheng Yang that the one it had given.

The garden wasn’t large, only ten thousand square meters, but it was completely overgrown with all kinds of plants. Cheng Yang even saw dozens rare varieties that tempted him to fail the test and grab those instead. In the end he could only stare at them enviously since even touching them might mean failing the test.

For ten minutes Cheng Yang scoured the garden.

“Dragon Creeper Buds, found…”

“Mystic Ice Flowers, done…”

“Earthworm Root, here…”

In just a few moments Cheng Yang had collected all ten components.

“Are you sure those are the ten components you need to pass the test?” The manager asked when he proclaimed he was finished.

Cheng Yang did not hesitate to reply that he was.

In an instance, the space around Cheng Yang distorted and he found himself facing the manager once more.

“Are you really coming back so soon?” The manager asked, unable to help giving him a disappointed look.

It was no wonder she didn’t believe in him. From her point of view, Cheng Yang achieving the level of High-Grade Apprentice in just four days put him at the absolute top of humanity. If such an amazing person were to wholly dedicate themselves to the test maybe they could produce a miracle. Even if it was possible it would still take the entire testing period to even have a chance. Since he was leaving so soon didn’t that mean he was giving up and trying his luck?

Cheng Yang smiled and showed the manager the ten components he had gathered. “I was just lucky. The god of this world must favor me since the names of each plant popped into my head just by looking at them. Naturally I finished quickly.”

Looking at the components Cheng Yang had placed on the counter the manager felt like she was in a dream. For someone who had yet to become an Alchemist this task was just too difficult. Even more so, Cheng Yang was the very first Alchemist so not a single soul on this planet knew the names of these plants before today!

The manager had nothing else to do but smile, since Cheng Yang had gathered these components he had passed without a shadow of a doubt. “It seems like you are a natural Alchemist my Lord. Your talent is enough to make even the gods envious. Since you are the first person to become an Alchemist I am pleased to announce that you have been granted a unique Innate Ability, the Perfect Medicinal Body. This Innate Ability will allow you to receive twice the benefits with half of the side effects whenever you use a potion. At the same time you have completed the Hellish difficulty test so your Alchemy Talent is top tier. You’ll be able to see the specifics when you become an Alchemist.”

The manager took out an intricate pale gold medallion from under the counter. “This is the Alchemy Profession Token, you can use it to immediately become a true Alchemist.”

Cheng Yang had gotten a Profession Token in the past but his had been crude and grey, obviously far worse quality than the one he had just received.

When Cheng Yang took the Profession Token, he held it in his hand and silently used it. Immediately after Cheng Yang felt that his palm was empty and the Profession Token had disappeared.

Cheng Yang couldn’t wait to open up his properties panel and found that a new column had appeared titled “Profession”.

---

Alchemist
Level: Low-Grade Apprentice (0%)
Energy: 20

Alchemy Talent

• The effect of potions that affect the Mana attribute are doubled

Skills

• Identify (Low-Grade): Identify alchemy components and what potions they can make
• Harvest (Low-Grade): Harvest an alchemical component without damaging it.
• Refine (Low-Grade): Create a potion

Recipes

None

---

Compared with his class status, the information about his Profession was much more concise. Even so, the Alchemy Talent he had received was overwhelming. Ordinarily people wouldn’t have any bonuses that apply to their Profession, although some people would have an Innate Ability that affected their Profession. If you completed the Hard difficulty test you would receive a few Profession Talents but weather they were good or not depended on luck.

All of those paled in front of the Profession Talent received by someone who passed the Hellish difficulty test. Most Profession Talents would increase a minor aspect of production such as reducing the amount of time, energy and resources needed to create a potion or boosting a single skill. Moreover the bonus would be far less than 100%.

At this time Cheng Yang thought of a wonderful thing. Wouldn’t he be able to make potions that were four times more powerful than normal for himself? If he just used this to create recovery potions he wouldn’t care that much since it would just save him some time but he knew that there were potions that temporarily or permanently increased attributes! If he combined his Alchemy Talent and Perfect Medicinal Body he would become incredibly powerful!

Cheng Yang forced himself to calm down, “Thank you for this opportunity, manager. Can you tell me what recipes are available?”

“I only have two recipes, the basic recovery potions. If you want more hurry up and increase the level of my Alchemy Tower.” The manager nagged.

Cheng Yang nodded, “I’ll be sure to do that, for now may I buy the Mana Recovery recipe?”

The manager happily went over to the shelves behind her and retrieved a sheepskin scroll, “This will cost one thousand Experience Fragments.”

Cheng Yang didn’t hesitate to buy it immediately. Although 1000 Experience Fragments was an astronomical price it wasn’t unbearable for Cheng Yang.

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Harvesting so much wood in one day was far beyond Cheng Yang’s expectations. He could see just how desperate everyone was today.

Cheng Yang was very clear on what he would build with this wood. First would be the Lumber Mill. If he didn’t, he would constantly be anxious. No one knew how many large pieces of wood were left in Huimin, and if they didn’t find enough to build the Lumber Mill tomorrow, they would be stuck scavenging the rest from scrap.

The second building would be the Alchemy Tower. The role of potions wasn’t necessarily more important than the other types of equipment, but they were absolutely vital if they wanted to reach Cloud City.

As for the remaining 20 cubic meters of wood, Cheng Yang was going to upgrade his Meditation Hall instead of leaving it for tomorrow. As the Lord of Phoenix Village, he should at least be able to enjoy this small luxury. The effect of the Standard-Grade Meditation Hall wasn’t that much better, but an extra 6.5% was still an increase.

After making this decision, Cheng Yang immediately built all three buildings.

For some time, the village which had already become dark, was suddenly lit up by the three curtains of light that appeared.

This scene shocked the people brought from Huimin. Most of them hadn’t even seen a class change ceremony and had no idea what this curtain of light represented. All they knew was that an incredible event was happening right in front of them.

After the light curtains dissipated, two new buildings could be seen. Cheng Yang’s Meditation Hall had also expanded.

The physical difference between the Low-Grade and Standard-Grade Meditation Hall was quite large. The Low-Grade buildings were a single room covering twenty square meters and inside, five beds surrounded a brazier. In comparison, Cheng Yang’s Meditation Hall now had two stories, covered an area of forty square meters and had individual rooms. If the Low-Grade Meditation Hall was the equivalent of a university dormitory, the Standard-Grade one would be a single-family house. The only real difference from a typical house was that it was made from wood, not brick.

Cheng Yang knew that two stories was the limit for Meditation Halls. Even after being upgraded to High-Grade, it would still only be two stories. As for when he would get the chance to upgrade his home, he didn’t know.

Although the Standard-Grade Meditation Hall was familiar to the citizens of Huimin, the other two buildings were totally strange. While they were strange to other people, Cheng Yang had seen those buildings in those locations every day for months. Seeing them standing there again just made him feel more at home. In this life, however, they were completely owned by him.

Cheng Yang ignored the gawking crowds and entered the Alchemy Tower.

The manager of the Alchemy Tower was dressed in the same clothes as the one Yuan Jianzhe had met. Unlike the commander, Cheng Yang wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see a human inside. He already knew that there would be managers in each of the buildings and that they weren’t from this world. He didn’t know everything, however. He wasn’t sure if they were fully sentient or just managers created by god.

Many people in his last life had tried to answer this question, hoping to find out from the managers, what kind of existence that supposed god was. They made almost no progress by the time Cheng Yang died. No one had even successfully lured one out of their building. They would only fulfill their duty of selling goods and teaching related Profession skills.

Of course, the managers in the safe zones could only sell goods.

“My Lord, what do you need to buy?” The woman said, figuring out Cheng Yang’s identity at a glance.

“Let me take a look at your catalog. If I see anything decent, I’ll buy it.” Cheng Yang replied respectfully.

“Of course.” The manager said gently. She reached under the counter and handed a book to Cheng Yang.

Cheng Yang took a look inside and saw a simple list of potions. Cheng Yang had found a Low Grade Mana Recovery Potion which recovered 30 Mana the day before, but the catalog had the more powerful Standard and High-Grade versions. Potions at that level would be more than enough for Cheng Yang to use for a long time.

---

Mana Recovery Potion (Standard-Grade): Restores 30 Mana instantly and then 8 Mana every second for ten seconds

---

The catalog also had Health Recovery Potions that had an identical effect except that it affected Health. As well, unlike the Mana Recovery Potion’s regeneration effect which would stop when you used a skill, Health Recovery Potion’s regeneration effect would stop if you took damage.

Those two types of potions were the only ones useful to Cheng Yang. Although there were others, they weren’t useful for fighting. After all, this was a Low-Grade Alchemy Tower. You couldn’t expect too much.

“Give me twenty Mana Recovery Potions and five Health Recovery Potions, all standard-Grade.” Cheng Yang said after browsing the catalog.

“Standard-Grade Recovery Potions are eight Experience Fragments each.” The manager said with a smile, “Your total is two hundred Experience Fragments for twenty five.”

Cheng Yang didn’t hesitate to pay for his goods and received them in a complementary cloth bag. Low-Grade Recovery Potions were much cheaper at two Experience Fragments each, but their effect was just too poor for someone at Cheng Yang’s level. It would be too cumbersome to carry enough Low-Grade potions to match the effects of twenty Standard-Grade ones.

“I plan to learn how to make potions and become an Alchemist.” Cheng Yang said putting the bag’s strap over one shoulder, “May I know what the conditions to become one are?”

“Becoming an Alchemist is quite simple, just pass a small test. However, I urge my Lord to consider this carefully as you can only have one Profession and will not be able to switch later. ” The manager replied with bright eyes.

“I am sure of my decision. Since I wasn’t able to become a Priest, the only way for me to save lives in this world is to become an Alchemist. I hope you will help me fulfill this wish.”

“That you would do such a thing when you are the Lord of this territory shows you have a righteous soul. Phoenix Village is truly blessed to have you rule it. Since you have such great ambition, I can naturally help you. The test you take to become an Alchemist can either be Easy, Difficult or Hellish. The quality of your Alchemy Talent will be decided by the level of difficulty you choose. Which one would you like?”

After listening to the manager, Cheng Yang hesitated. The real reason he had chosen to become an Alchemist was the reward for being the first Alchemist in the world. Although other Professions had their own rewards, the Alchemist one was perfect for a front-line fighter. Cheng Yang also didn’t want to pick a useless Profession such as Logger or Farmer. Although they had good rewards, there was no way to benefit from the Profession itself, whereas an Alchemist could refine their own potions, saving them Experience Fragments.

The Easy difficulty wasn’t hard to pass at all, but the difficulty sharply spiked with each increase in difficulty. Although the Hellish difficulty might be hard beyond belief, even if you died during the trial, you would revive in the Alchemy Tower again. Of course, the penalty for failure was that you could not retake the test for three months. If he was able to pass the test now, he could absolutely guarantee that he would be the first Alchemist in the world but at that point, the chances of Cheng Yang becoming the first Alchemist were slim.

In his previous life, fewer than thirty people in the world had announced that they had cleared the Hellish difficulty test. Those numbers alone showed just how hard it was to complete the trial. It was exceedingly difficult to complete higher difficulty trials, but there was a correspondingly huge reward. Those that had completed the Hellish difficulty test were comparable to the people that had unique classes. Although clearing the Hard difficulty was only as good as having a rare class like Priest, they were still leagues above people that only cleared the Easy difficulty.

After a fierce internal struggle, Cheng Yang decided to take the Hellish difficulty test. If you didn’t have the spirit of adventure, you wouldn’t go far in this world!

Cheng Yang hadn’t made that decision out of arrogance or because of how high level he was. Instead the choice had been made after carefully considering his past knowledge.

As time passed in his old life, the Profession tests got harder and harder. This was because the actual content of the test wasn’t tied to the difficulty but the number of people who had entered a Profession, the average level of people in the Profession, the highest level of someone in the Profession, and the average level of the world’s Professionals. That is to say, each time someone took the test, it would get slightly harder. The difficulty levels were each scaled off of this general difficulty.

It was widely believed that god did this so that people wouldn’t be able to increase the number of people who passed the Hellish difficulty, as they learned more about the tests and the Profession itself.

What would that mean for the difficulty of Cheng Yang’s test? There were no Alchemists currently and the average level definitely didn’t exceed Low-Grade Apprentice. Cheng Yang being at the High-Grade Apprentice level was truly unique. Since that was the case, even if the test was nearly impossible for a normal person, for Cheng Yang who had the knowledge of his past life and a high level, it should be difficulty but not exceedingly so.

“I choose the Hellish difficulty test.” Cheng Yang said, “Please administer one for me.”

“It seems I wasn’t wrong about my Lord’s ambition!” The manager praised.

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“Farmer? A Profession like that exists?” Old Lee asked in surprise.

“Yep, as you can see from the crazy tree growth, the soil content has changed since the apocalypse. From now on, food will not grow naturally. That is why there is a Profession specialized in forcing the land to grow food. We haven’t unlocked the Profession yet, so I can’t give you many details.” Cheng Yang explained.

After finishing up his conversation with Old Lee, Cheng Yang left the village and sprinted to Huimin.

Huimin was close enough to Phoenix Village that a small piece of it overlapped with the village’s territory boundary. Although that overlap was small, it created a safe space to keep survivors and almost guaranteed that the path back to Phoenix Village would be safe. Larger groups of civilians could be taken back with a smaller amount of guards.

When Cheng Yang arrived at Huimin, he saw an exciting spectacle.

The few hundred meters surrounding the safe zone were being torn apart by the soldiers of Phoenix Village. They instantly killed any monsters that wandered over and worked together to dismantle ruins so that they could find survivors.

Whenever he walked past a group of soldiers, they would stop and respectfully greet Cheng Yang. Although he couldn’t guarantee that they truly respected him, he could feel their sincere gratitude. After all, Cheng Yang had saved them and gave them the power to control their fate.

After walking three hundred meters, he found that the atmosphere was entirely different. Since this was far away from the safe zone, large groups of monsters could be seen in several places. The soldiers from Phoenix Village only dared to travel in tight groups, constantly on edge lest they provoke a horde they couldn’t handle.

Fortunately, there were a lot of ruins they could hide behind, as long as they were careful they could avoid detection.

First Cheng Yang found Yu Kai’s team which was searching for supplies. Although killing monsters was the only way to quickly gain strength, most people found it too dangerous or couldn’t bring themselves to fight them. If it wasn’t in self defense, most people wouldn’t fight a single monster, much less a horde of them.

“Yoko, back so soon? How’s it going?” Yu Kai whispered when he spotted Cheng Yang.

Cheng Yang had the same conversation with Yu Kai as he had with Old Lee.

“It’s definitely the right choice to clean up Huimin first. I talked to some of the locals and there were two wood processing plants here before the apocalypse! After the earthquake, they were buried and changed location a little bit. Some of the wood we’ve found was pre-processed so we should find the plants themselves soon. As long as we can clear out the monster hordes here, we’ll be able to loot both plants.” Yu Kai reported.

“That’s great. Spread the message that in an hour we’re going to make a united extermination team. The first horde we’ll target is the one with a hundred monsters, then we’ll wear down the biggest one.”

After Cheng Yang explained his plan for the battle, Yu Kai’s eyes lit up in excitement before going to alert the other groups.

In less than forty minutes, a hundred and thirty-four people had gathered around Cheng Yang. They had quickly adapted to the environment and kept their mouths shut, waiting for Cheng Yang to speak.

Three of the teams had come together for this operation, with each class evenly represented and three Priests present.

“Alright, everyone. I’ll now explain to you our battle plans.” Cheng Yang began to address the crowd, “We’ll set up our soldiers on various tall ruins. As usual, the Summoners will call out their wolves to defend the front line with the warriors behind them at the foot of the ruins. The ranged soldiers will position themselves on the ruins allowing them to easily target the monsters below. This will be a team battle, so I don’t want any heroics from you. If you cause the death of another soldier because you tried to act alone, I will personally execute you. It may sound cold, but I will not allow anyone to bring harm to Phoenix Village.”

The soldiers below him were silent but they nodded in unison.

“There are several small monster groups scattered around. Once we’ve eliminated them, we’ll have some breathing room to deal with the larger ones. Let’s begin.” Cheng Yang walked towards the soldiers.

As they began to march, Cheng Yang positioned himself in the center of the army. Although this greatly limited his effectiveness as a fighter, it was a better place to lead from.

The first horde they faced was a group of forty Lesser Mephits. When they saw the Phoenix Village army begin to set up their formation, they didn’t hesitate to charge over. They started to chant in their bestial language, hungry for human flesh.

“Attack.” Cheng Yang commanded firing off the first shot. His shot was followed by a dozens of arrows and Magic Missiles. When they made contact with the monster horde, they let out miserable screams.

Cheng Yang wasn’t worried that the screams of the Lesser Mephits would attract another monster horde since different types of monsters hated each other. Unless there was a treasure or powerful leader to control them, each group would ignore the other even if they called for help. Of course, if they heard the humans the other horde was fighting, they would rush over immediately.

Only two or three Lesser Mephits died in that wave of attacks. Even though most were injured to some extent, it didn’t affect their ability to fight.

Lesser Mephits were rather slow monsters so it would take them three or four seconds to cover the forty meters between them and the army. Cheng Yang and the other ranged Professionals launched volley after volley at them as they approached. By the time they clashed with the Summoner’s wolves at least twelve had died.

The defensive capabilities of the Warriors weren’t bad since they could block a monsters charge with their shields, but Summoners provided the ultimate meatshields. Their wolves would fight unscrupulous battles where both sides tore each other apart. Luckily, neither side was very smart, so neither had a distinct advantage.

With the Lesser Mephits tied up by the wolves and the Warriors, they quickly died.

The first of the monster hordes had been eliminated cleanly. After two minutes of Meditation, they chose another target.

They fought for nearly an hour, eradicating most of the monster hordes and reducing the total number of monsters by seventy percent. The last two hordes each had two hundred or more members, a number that the Warriors and wolves wouldn’t be able to fully defend against. Cheng Yang had no intention of letting his army try to defend against either of those hordes. Although it was normal to see the summoned wolves die, if any of his soldiers died, Cheng Yang would feel terrible. Although they weren’t strong by his standard, they were still the soldiers he had diligently raised and were much better than people who had just performed a class change ceremony.

Fortunately, since Huimin was almost devoid of monsters, Cheng Yang would be able to safely kite those large hordes. He wouldn’t have to worry about running into another horde and the ruins provided more than enough cover.

Cheng Yang copied the tactics he had used this morning, making the monsters run in circles and insta-killing a few every time they got near.

When the number of monsters in each horde dropped below eighty, he would lead it back to the army’s defensive line. Yu Kai would then direct the army in annihilating the remainder of the horde.

At around seven that evening, Huimin had been entirely cleared of monsters. Although a few would respawn occasionally, the guard teams would kill them within minutes.

Cheng Yang had undoubtedly gained the most from today’s activities. The number of Experience Fragments Cheng Yang obtained was about 20% of the total earned by the entire army. He had earned 300 Experience Fragments, whereas the average soldier had around fifteen. The reason Cheng Yang was able to earn that much because not only could he insta-kill Low-Grade monsters but he rarely missed. The soldiers in his army would need four or five hits to kill a monster and missed regularly.

Cheng Yang was no longer needed in Huimin since he could rely on the guard and cleanup teams to handle the situation. They would be able to collect the materials Phoenix Village needed, including the all-important wood.

After congratulating the army on their victory, Cheng Yang returned to Phoenix Village. After he left, Yu Kai and Lau Hui led the effort to distribute water to the survivors hiding in the ruins.

By the time Cheng Yang returned to the village, it had gotten dark. Cheng Yang went directly to the Territory Altar to begin new research since the one he had started in the morning, had finished some time ago. After paying all of the research costs, Phoenix Village still had 1300 Experience Fragments.

The reason why Experience Fragments were abundant in the territory was that the new collection range of Phoenix Village included Huimin. All of the monsters that had been hunted contributed to the number of Experience Fragments owned by the territory.

Cheng Yang estimated that this trend would continue for a few days while they got rid of all the large monsters hordes surrounding Phoenix Village.

Turning off the system pane, Cheng Yang discovered that Experience Values weren’t the only thing the village had gotten a lot of today. Cheng Yang didn’t know if god had done this on purpose, but several large logs from the Huimin lumber processing plants had been scattered around the city. Thus even though they hadn’t found the processing plants themselves, nearly 170 cubic meters of wood had been collected.

Together with the forty cubic meters, they had collected yesterday they had enough wood to build two of the new buildings.

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While Yuan Jianzhe was suffering from humiliation, Cheng Yang was massaging a persistent headache. He was watching the southern entrance to Cloud City while hiding in a tree and just seeing the number of monsters occupying the passage made his scalp go numb.

The horde seemed to have seven hundred monsters, maybe eight hundred? There was also no shortage of high-level monsters, both normal and Elite. There was almost definitely a High-Grade monster or two in there. Maybe even a Pinnacle Grade.

Although he had killed that High-Level wolf leader, that didn’t mean he was a match for all or even most High-Level monsters. When a high-level monster was hidden within a horde, they became a deadly threat even to humans a level higher than them.

If he were to provoke those monsters, what would happen?

Cheng Yang looked around and saw that aside from the area where the road used to be, there were dense forests with low lying bramble bushes. Escaping into those woods wouldn’t be hard if there was a group that cleared the bushes while the other’s fought, but since he was alone, the only safe way was to leave the way he came.

He had to consider the possibility that a monster horde would suddenly appear behind him, blocking the road. It was fairly likely too as most monster hordes would roam looking for food. It was just that they didn’t travel very fast until they detected a human.

This was also different from when he fought fifty monsters at once. Although it was possible to escape an encirclement when it was just fifty or even up to a hundred monsters, trying to break free from nearly a thousand was impossible. If you got caught in the middle of a horde with over a hundred monsters, you could only pray for a merciful death.

Cheng Yang didn’t even consider trying to fight them in a battle of attrition and slowly retreated. His goal for today was only to scout out the monster horde, so his job was already done. As for how Phoenix Village would get past the horde? It would be a discussion left for later, after the construction of an Alchemy Tower and stocked up a sufficient number of potions.

On the way back, he took a different route so he could visit areas he hadn’t cleared. By the time he returned to Phoenix Village, it was already three in the afternoon.

Although he had been out for quite a while, it was worth it. He had over 1500 Experience Fragments, so even if the thousand he lent out were lost, he would still be able to use eight times training speed.

When Cheng Yang opened the gates to Phoenix Village, he found that Old Lee’s team was currently in the territory. They weren’t training but rather were guarding the walls.

Old Lee and his soldiers weren’t training right now since they had trained last night. They would need to wait another few hours before they would be allowed to train again.

Phoenix Village didn’t really need any guards right now. The territory limits were a kilometer away, so monsters didn’t wander all the way to the walls very often. The real reason they were standing guard on the walls was to keep an eye on the thousand or so normal people. Although Phoenix Village wasn’t in crisis right now, they weren’t safe either. With so many bored and anxious people in one area, it was inevitable that there would be some incidents.

Seeing Cheng Yang walk through the north gate, Old Lee immediately rushed over, “How was the situation my Lord? Will we be able to reach Cloud City?”

“I’m not going to lie, it looked pretty bad when I checked it out. The only way into the city is a hundred-meter wide bridge since there’s a nearly bottomless pit surrounding the rest of the city. Right now, almost a thousand monsters are gathered on that bridge. In order to get to Cloud City, we’ll need to kill those monsters, and their numbers will only grow.”

“Is that really the only way?” Old Lee asked miserably, “It’s already been four days, I just want to know if my family is dead or not…… God! Why are you so fucking cruel?! Why didn’t you just kill me!” He roared at the sky.

Cheng Yang sighed in his heart. He had seen several people have worse breakdowns than Old Lee’s, so he didn’t consider it weird, “Hey now, that’s not going to help your family. As long as we’re diligent, I think we’ll be able to enter the city in a few days.” Cheng Yang said comfortingly, “The military should have started to stabilize the city yesterday and the commander Yuan Jianzhe is a competent man, so he’ll definitely save everyone he can. Instead of being angry just work harder. Even if your family is in a bad situation, think of how happy they’ll be to see you again.”

“Phew…” Old Lee gradually calmed down, “You’re right Cheng Yang. If I were to die, my family definitely would have a hard time. As long as I’m alive, there’s hope.”

Cheng Yang patted him on the back before saying, “It seems like quite a few people were saved today. Ah, did the refugees in Huimin start to leave their hiding spots?”

“My Lord, since most people haven’t had anything to drink for several days, all the people hiding in the shadows were withered from dehydration. If they hadn’t emerged from hiding, they wouldn’t have needed to worry about the monsters anymore, since they’d be dead. Plus there aren’t many small monster groups left in Huimin since the large ones are spaced out by a hundred meters or so, many people felt like it wouldn’t be too dangerous. That’s why we were able to save over six hundred people today. More importantly, there are still hundreds left in the city too weak to keep up with the groups we were taking earlier. Right now, the other four teams are working hard to clear the remaining monster hordes so that we can bring everyone in the city back to the village.” Old Lee reported.

“How many people are still alive in Huimin?” Cheng Yang asked in surprise.

“Right now, we’ve got two thousand people who were too weak to move and we estimate that another two thousand should be in the other half of the city, based on how many we found in the first half. As for the rest of the population, they were either killed by monsters or died of dehydration.”

Cheng Yang did a rough head count of the one thousand three hundred people in Phoenix Village right now. If they could save the four thousand people left in Huimin, they could be considered a town instead of a village.

Although that was a good thing, feeding a town of five thousand would be a massive undertaking. It wasn’t like they could all eat monster meat every day. It would work in the short term, but if they had nothing else, most of the population would develop health problems.

It seemed like he would have to build a Grocery before any of the other buildings, otherwise, the lack of fruits and grains would create a huge problem.

In the early days of the apocalypse, everyone would have to eat the food sold by the Groceries in the safe zones. Although no one knew why they had an inexhaustible supply of nutritious food, everyone was grateful that they did.

“You mentioned that there were a few large monster hordes in Huimin. How many are in the biggest one?” Cheng Yang asked.

“Huimin town isn’t very big, so after killing most of the monsters, there are only fourteen hordes left, the smallest having sixty and the largest three hundred.”

“Fortunately, that’s not a big problem for us. I’ll go to Huimin this afternoon to lead the teams in cleaning up every one of those hordes. Although the monsters will just respawn, it will be easy for us to keep their numbers down and save the rest of the citizens.”

“My Lord, I suggest you build the Lumber Mill before you leave. If we have a large group of people cutting down trees, we’ll be able to build all the other buildings in a single day.”

Cheng Yang gave Old Lee a wan smile, “I’m sorry to say it, but our Lumber Mill will have nowhere near the output your’s did before the apocalypse. On a good day, a logger will only be able to harvest ten cubic meters of wood.”

“Ten cubic meters?! Why so few? Even if I just went right now with my sword, I should be able to gather more than that, how come they can only collect ten cubic meters?”

“Only trees cut down with the Logging skill can be used to build things for the village.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s just one of the new rules god made. I don’t know why they were put in place.”

“What about the wood you ordered before the apocalypse? Why were you able to use that?”

“When god transformed the world, that rule was only added to living trees so anything cut down before the apocalypse still counts.”

“What a pity, I have thousands of cubic meters of wood back at my lumber mill. Why didn’t you buy more?”

“Truth be told, I wouldn’t have been able to pay for the wood I asked you for. I could only barely afford the down payment. If the apocalypse hadn’t happened, I would have been seriously in debt.”

“It’s too bad I wouldn’t have believed you back then otherwise we wouldn’t need to be so worried over a small about of wood right now.”

“Who said I was worried? Once we build the Lumber Mill, a few dozen people will become Loggers and we’ll have a steady influx of wood.”

“Why not let most of each team become a Logger? Then we’d be able to gather hundreds of cubic meters a day and quickly fulfill the level up requirements for the village.”

“Simple, you can’t eat wood. People need to stay fed, so it’s inevitable that most people will become Farmers.”

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Watching the Magic Missile approach, the leader of the wolf pack’s eyes flashed with fear. It had the feeling that if it let that attack land, it would definitely be killed on the spot.

At that time it was filled with regret. If it had known this human was so strong, it would have run away immediately, even if it had to leave the treasure it found. Even if it meant not growing stronger as quickly, wasn’t that better than dying?

However, there was no medicine for regret in this world. Not for humans and certainly not for monsters.

In its last moments, it tried to backpedal and dodge but the attack was just to fast. Completely unable to defend itself, a mighty Elite High-Grade Immature monster died as its skull burst apart.

The leader of the wolf pack died just like that. It wasn’t the strongest monster in the world, it may not even have been the strongest monster near Cloud City, but without a doubt it was the first of its kind to die. The first Elite High-Grade monster killed in this lifetime.

Although Cheng Yang had killed the leader, he couldn’t avoid being swarmed by the dozens of wolves left. He was unable to defend in the slightest and was bitten several times.

His Physical Defense was well above what a Low-Grade Venom-Fanged Wolf could deal with, so every attack was incredibly weak. Even so, the minimum damage an attack could deal was one point. With so many wolves attacking him, Cheng Yang still lost almost forty percent of his health in just ten seconds.

Cheng Yang couldn’t afford to spend another second here! With just 53 Mana left, there was no way to defeat the wolf pack, and if he stayed still, they would eventually whittle his health to zero.

As soon as Cheng Yang managed to free himself from under the wolves, he immediately made a U-turn and ran away.

Cheng Yang’s speed was leagues beyond the Low-Grade wolves and within seconds, he had opened up a huge gap between them. A minute later, they weren’t even visible anymore. Once the pack was out of site, Cheng Yang sat down and used the Meditation skill. He wouldn’t have time to fully recharge his Mana, but every point counted.

Ten seconds later, the wolves were less than forty meters away from Cheng Yang. He hopped up and charged a Magic Missile. There were still thirty-two wolves left, so he didn’t dare to slack off.

He fired two Magic Missiles at the wolves in the front, promptly killing them. The ten Mana he had just regained were spent instantly. Not wanting to risk taking more damage, Cheng Yang started running again before they got within ten meters of him.

With only a single Standard-Level monster left, the horde wasn’t able to threaten Cheng Yang anymore. After all, in a battle of attrition, he would definitely win thanks to his speed.

It took Cheng Yang twenty-five minutes to mop up the rest of the wolf pack.

When the last wolf died, Cheng Yang flopped to the ground and lay on his back. He had been in a tight spot earlier as it was common knowledge in his past life that; even if you were strong, you shouldn’t fight even medium hordes alone. Unless you had enough magic potions, you were in for a long grind. The worst part about this encounter was that the hunting efficiency was just too low! After half an hour of stressful work, Cheng Yang had only gained 62 Experience Fragments! If he had focused on smaller hordes, his gains would have been much higher.

Cheng Yang quickly returned to the area he had originally encountered the wolves. It was time to collect the loot he had risked his life for.

Cheng Yang quickly rushed to pick up the stave allowing its status pane to open up.

---

Wolf King’s Sorrow
A stave crafted from the leg bones of the once mighty Wolf King, a Pinnacle-Grade Evolved monster that ruled a pack of millions. Shoddy construction has caused its power to diminish over time.

Grade: Black Iron
Class: Mage
Requirements: Standard-Grade Apprentice
Durability: 80/80
Effect: Increase Magic Attack by 4

---

It really was a Black Iron stave! Although Cheng Yang was able to guess that based on its appearance and the strength of the horde leader, it was only speculation. Now that he actually had his hands on such a good piece of equipment, he couldn’t help but shout with joy.

Although, a Black Iron piece of equipment that increased an Attack stat by 4 was fairly average. In his previous life, the most powerful weapon publicly known to humanity was a Purple Silver longbow named Garuda’s Clavicle. It boasted an insane nine point increase to Physical Attack. It allowed the wielder to fight monsters two levels higher than them.

Moreover, Black Iron equipment was only suitable to be used by Apprentices. Purple Silver equipment and grades above that were considered standard for higher levels. Cheng Yang had only heard rumors of such equipment in his past life, but never seen it.

Cheng Yang equipped the new stave but was left with a dilemma. If he wanted to take his old stave with him, it would only get in the way but he was reluctant to just toss it into the wilderness. Every single piece of equipment was a valuable treasure to Phoenix Village.

Cheng Yang found himself daydreaming about a certain ring that was sold in the Silversmithy. Spacial Rings! They were able to store items inside of them and reducing their weight to nothing! The item was a must have for anyone that wanted to make a long journey or run a far away instance dungeon. The only downside was that they were outrageously expensive, expensive to the point that hardly anyone could buy them. Even if Phoenix Village had a Silversmithy, Cheng Yang would only be able to gaze wistfully at the Spacial Ring section.

In the end, Cheng Yang tied his old stave to his back using the sinews of the wolves he killed.

As Cheng Yang continued his journey, he ran into a horde with a little over thirty monsters and entirely exterminated it with ease. His damage was so high that the Standard-Grade leader had directly keeled over in pain, unable to dodge the follow up that killed it. He was confident that if he were to face that wolf pack again, he definitely wouldn’t fall into such a dangerous situation.

Even if he encountered large hordes with several high level monsters, Cheng Yang was unafraid to kill the leaders because he would run before he was noticed. After recharging his Mana quickly, he would rush back and massacre the remaining mobs.

His only regret was that his luck had run out and he didn’t find anything else of value. On the upside, he didn’t run into anything stronger than Elite Standard-Grade.

After advancing another two kilometers, Cheng Yang had obtained 300 Experience Fragments. In addition to the ones he had earned earlier, his total was now over 1000 once again.

At this point, he was only about a kilometer from Cloud City so he started to act more conservatively. In his previous life, each of the roads leading out of Cloud City had been guarded by pretty big monster hordes. One of the reasons the army didn’t leave the city until late March was that they couldn’t defeat those wardens.

After the initial earthquake, a natural wonder was formed around every city. A pit was dug around the city, seventy meters wide, and seemingly endless. The only way in or out of each city were bridges at each of the cardinal directions 100 meters wide.

As for how many monsters who were currently guarding those passages, Cheng Yang had no clue. They were only discovered after two weeks in his previous life, so he didn’t know what they looked like in the first few days of the apocalypse.

When he first brought Old Lee out on the first night, he hadn’t told them this since they would only have thought he was trying to trick them into not going.

As he got closer, Cheng Yang couldn’t help but feel anxious. If he was lucky, the number of monsters in the horde would only be in the low hundreds, but if he wasn’t it, could be thousands.

---

At the same time that Cheng Yang left Phoenix Village, Yuan Jianzhe had just sent the latest batch of soldiers out of the safe zone.

It didn’t take long for him to realize just how much better Professionals were compared to guns. However, that revelation had only been a source of stress and anxiety for him. He was worried that if he couldn’t produce enough Professionals in time, the next horde would completely wipe them out.

In order to gain even the slightest advantage, he planned to visit the six buildings surrounding the statues. The first one he visited was a spindly building with a sign reading “Alchemy Tower”.

Right now, Yuan Jianzhe was just going in to take a look. When he had entered the safe zone, he was told that these buildings would sell certain items but never specified what items were sold. The only issue was that money from the old world wouldn’t work, they could only use Experience Values gained from killing monsters.

Since everyone’s Experience Values were being used to perform class change ceremonies, no one had used a shop yet. The reason he came in was to determine what items were good and to make future spending plans early.

However, when Yuan Jianzhe entered the Alchemy Tower, he was shocked.

Yuan Jianzhe had prepared himself before walking in, so that even if a dragon was inside he wouldn’t be surprised, but how could he not be surprised to see a human? A living, breathing human!

The middle aged man was casually standing there dressed in ancient clothes.

Who the hell was that man?

Yuan Jianzhe suddenly had a terrifying thought. What if that man was related to the god that had destroyed the world?

He took a few cautious step forward and then bowed to the man. “Your Excellency, may I ask who you are? How did you find yourself in this place?”

The man smiled brightly. “Welcome to the Alchemy Tower, we can fit all of your alchemical needs, what are you looking to purcha- … huh? You don’t even have a single Experience Fragment. What’s a bum like you doing in my store? Get the hell out and come back when you aren’t so poor!”

Yuan Jianzhe was flustered, to say the least. He hadn’t been spoken to so disrespectfully since before he became an executive in the military. Even so, he was a very calm person and didn’t show his true feelings. “Your Excellency, I just wanted to ask-“

“You annoying brat, if you want to ask questions, go to the Tavern! The only thing you can do here is to buy potions, and you’re too poor to even get a cheap salve!” When he finished berating Yuan Jianzhe, he waved his hand and Yuan Jianzhe was forcefully pushed out of the shop by an invisible barrier.

As he picked himself up from the ground, Yuan Jianzhe couldn’t help but fear the shopkeeper. If wasn’t just because of how powerful the man was, but that he couldn’t even tell what he had done.

He then visited the other stores, only to suffer a similar fate. It seemed that those shopkeepers wouldn’t even give you the time of day if you didn’t have money.

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It was a black stave jutting out of the dirt and from its unique appearance it should be of a better quality than his. Although Cheng Yang wasn’t using his starter equipment anymore his stave was very ordinary. It was just a Green Bronze piece of equipment, commonly called initial equipment in his past life. In Cheng Yang’s experience a guardian horde of just fifty was too few for the equipment to be above the Green Bronze level but since it was the beginning of the apocalypse maybe he would get lucky. Cheng Yang hoped he would be able to change his weapon soon.

Cheng Yang carefully observed the distant monsters. The horde was entirely composed of Venom-Fanged Gray Wolves and as expected there were a few elites as well. The leader seemed to be a bigger wolf curled up next to the stave. Based on the black inky patterns in it’s fur it might have even been able to reach High-Grade by using the stave’s magical fluctuations to speed up its growth.

If the leader was the same level as him, this would be pretty troublesome. If it was just the leader, Cheng Yang was confident he could win. He had an advantage in speed that would allow him to avoid damage and enough Mana to kill a High-Grade monster without needing to Meditate somewhere.

However, the leader wasn’t alone, and Cheng Yang didn’t have enough Mana to kill all fifty wolves.

His only option was to pull the wolves into a battle of attrition but jumping from tree to tree. Regardless, it would be best for him to kill the leader first.

The tree Cheng Yang was perched in had a trunk the size of a millstone but wouldn’t be able to resist so many attacks. He scanned the area until he spotted a tree thick enough that two people would be able to wrap their arms around it. Although it might not be able to resist the attacks of the leader for long, it should be able to stall the ordinary wolves. He didn’t need long to kill the leader.

Cheng Yang dropped to the ground and lightly ran over to the tree. It must have been a big tree even before the apocalypse and after a few days of accelerated growth had reached its current size. Without hesitation, Cheng Yang swiftly climbed up the tree.

The tree was more than forty meters away from the pack of wolves so Cheng Yang couldn’t reach it with his Magic Missile. Having been in similar situations before Cheng Yang had prepared a few fist-sized rocks. After a few deep breaths, Cheng Yang hurled the rock at the wolves.

POW The rock landed in the middle of the group of wolves causing them to jump up in alarm. They let out loud growls as the searched for the source of the noise.

The leader stood up and sniffed the air. After a few seconds, it looked towards Cheng Yang and let out a wild howl.

The rest of the horde followed the leader’s example, howling towards the sky before charging towards Cheng Yang.

“Ow…” The loud wolf howls resonated in Cheng Yang’s ears. When they reached him, they started to gnaw at the tree with their sharp fangs.

They created sawdust with their fangs, and their venom ate away at the rest.

“Shit! Isn’t that too cowardly!” Cheng Yang swore. The leader hadn’t taken the initiative but instead stayed out of range, letting the weaker wolves attack first. It was a despicable tactic for a monster to use.

Cheng Yang couldn’t just sit and watch the Venom-Fanged Wolves knock down the tree otherwise, he would die. All he could do was grit his teeth and fire Magic Missiles at the wolves below him.

Ptew Cheng Yang fired a Magic Missile into one of the Elite Standard-Grade wolves. It tore directly through its back, bursting open its chest. The damage was so great that even after a few seconds, the wolf was entirely unable to get up.

The next Magic Missile directly destroyed its head, killing it.

Cheng Yang clicked his tongue, “Why did there have to be some damn many of them.”

The death of an Elite caused the wolf pack to go into a frenzy.

Sixteen Magic Missiles were fired and sixteen wolves died. At this point, Cheng Yang was in a dire situation. He only had 78 Mana left and a third of the trunk was gone. All it would take to break the tree was a single strong hit.

Right before firing another magic missile, Cheng Yang spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. The leader had quietly started to charge at the tree, and its speed was slightly faster than Cheng Yang’s!

“Fuck! Why did it have to have a Movement Speed Innate Ability!” Cheng Yang lamented miserably.

Monsters, like humans, had all kinds of Innate Abilities. The leader of the wolf pack had a Movement Speed Innate Ability which synergized with the already high Movement Speed of the Venom-Fanged Wolves.

Seeing that the leader had entered his attack range, Cheng Yang forcibly changed targets and fired.

If it was anyone else, they would find it difficult to hit the leader under those conditions, but Cheng Yang’s past life wasn’t just for decoration.

Cheng Yang managed to hit the wolf’s flank causing it to let out a tragic howl. Instead of slowing down, it just got mad, its eyes turning red. It coldly stared at Cheng Yang, but even with its speed, it could only eat another Magic Missile before reaching the tree.

Even if it had a regular High-Grade monster’s 12 Physical Defense, it would still take a little over fifty points of damage. Cheng Yang only had to land four hits to kill it.

A few second’s later, Cheng Yang had finished casting magic missile and was ready to fire, but at the same time, the leader violently hit the trunk of the tree causing it to shake. Branches and leaves fell from above while the entire tree creaked.

Cheng Yang’s experience from his past life showed its true worth here. After losing his balance, Cheng Yang was able to grab a branch with his free hand while falling and flicking his stave towards the leader, sending a Magic Missile right towards it.

Ptew With a dull thud, the Magic Missile hit the leader on the nose.

The wolf pack leader whimpered in pain before smashing into the tree again.

Twrrrrrr The tree groaned under the weight of the wolf and started to tip backward, giving Cheng Yang a big shock. The leader was this strong? Just two hits and the tree was already falling?

Come on! Cheng Yang steadied his body and relied on his intuition to properly aim at the wolf.

This time the leader let out a tragic wail but hadn’t died as expected.

“Shit, I forgot it was an Elite.” Cheng Yang calculated in his head that it should have less than a single point of health left, how unlucky!

At this time the tree couldn’t hold on any longer and wide cracks spread on its trunk. It couldn’t resist the pull of gravity and fell towards the ground.

The wolf pack knew that their prey would soon be on the ground and had gathered together in the area where the tree would fall. Even the leader limped over with hatred in its eyes.

The leader of the Venom-Fanged Wolves was furious. It was born a ruler having the strength of a Standard-Grade monster since the day it spawned allowing it to easily gather a large horde underneath it. Just yesterday, it had found a magical treasure and successfully became its guardian, leveling up in the process.

Becoming a High-Grade monster made it feel like it was blessed by god to become a powerful beast emperor in the future, but now a human had caused it enormous pain and almost killed it! How could it possibly become the leader of a mighty horde if it couldn’t even kill a single human?

Cheng Yang watched the leader of the wolves draw closer with ecstasy. He didn’t care about the large number of monsters he would have to fight later, all he could do was praise the leader for being stupid enough to give him the chance to land a killing blow. With a smirk, Cheng Yang fired the final Magic Missile at the leader’s head.

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